Part 7 (1/2)

But the point of my experience is not that a problem interest had been awakened, but rather that the white heat of that interest was not utilized so co upon eneralinformation That was the anization to-day is that most teachers, likelike individual attention at such moments is out of the question

Next to individual attention, probably, the best way to overcoive class instruction in thesepupils the technique of using books If one could arouse a sufficiently general problem interest, this sort of instruction could be eneral, I think that it is well to assuive them the benefit of class instruction in the art of study,--even if some of the seed should fall upon barren soil

This aspect of teaching pupils how to study is particularly ih school, where pupils have sufficientlyto be intrusted with individual problems, and where so these always is the dictionary, and to get pupils to use this ponderous volu them how to study Here, too, it is easy to be pedantic As I shall insist strenuously a little later, the chief factor in insuring a transfer of training from one subject to another is to leave in the pupil's mind a distinct consciousness that the method that he has been trained to folloorth while,--that it gets results The dictionary habit is likely to begin and end within the schoolroom unless steps are taken to insure the operation of this factor It is easy to overwork the dictionary and to use it fruitlessly, in so great a measure, in fact, that the pupil will never want to see a dictionary again

Aside from the use of the dictionary, is the use of the helps thatthe inforinal and cross-references, and the like These, again, are h school, and here again if ish the skill that is developed in their use to be transferred, we must take pains to see that the pupil really appreciates their value,--that he realizes their ti functions I do not know that there is any better way to do this than to let him flounder around without them for a little so that his sense of their value may be enhanced by contrast

III

Another important step e children to pick out the significant features in the text or portion of the text that they are reading This, of course, is work that is to be undertaken froin to use books

How to do it effectively is a puzzling problem and one that will amply repay study and experi of lessons by teachers and pupils together will help, provided that the exercise is spirited and vital, and is not looked upon by the pupils as an easy way of getting out of recitation work McMurry strongly reco of books to indicate the topic sentences and the other salient features Personally, I anment is all-important here, and that study questions and problems which can be answered or solved by reference to the text will help matters very much; but care must, of course, be taken that the continued use of such questions does not preclude the pupil's own er, it is well that the pupils be requested frequently to make out their own lists of questions, and, as speedily as possible, both the questions made by the pupil and those made by the teacher, should be replaced by topical outlines By taking care that the questions are logically arranged,--that is, that a general question refer to the topic of the paragraph, and other subordinate questions to the subordinate details of the paragraph,--the transition from the questions to the topical outline o the transition in recitation from the question-and-answer type to the topical type; and when you have trained a class into the habit of topical recitation,--when each pupil can talk right through a topic (not around it or underneath it or above it) without the use of ”pu way toward developing the art of study

The transfer of this training, however, is quite another matter There are pupils who can work up excellent topical recitations froetting a grasp on a subject treated in other books Here again the proble the pupil to see the method apart fros results that are worth while If, in our training in the topical method, we are too forht there It is here that the factor of motivation is of supreme importance When real probleent reading, the general worth of the o so far as to say that the pupil should never be required to study unless he has a real problem that he wishes to solve In fact, I think that we still have a large place for the formal, systematic mastery of texts by every pupil in our schools I do contend, however, that the frequent introduction of real probleive us an opportunity to show the pupil that the method that he has utilized in his more for that appeals to him as worth while Only in this way, I believe, can we insure that transfer of training which is the iht also to say, parenthetically, that we should not interpret too narrowly this word ”motivation” Let us remember that what may appeal to the adult as an effective motive does not always appeal to the child as such Economic motives are the most effective, probably, in our own adult lives, and probably very effective with high-school pupils, but econo children, nor should ish them to be It is not always true that the child will approach a school task sympathetically when he knows that the task is an essential preparation for the life that is going on about hiet ahead of his fellow-pupils than he would if the motive were to fit hiely a matter of instinct with the child, and he may, indeed, be perfectly satisfied with a school task just as it stands For exaht kind of drill Repetition, especially rhythmic repetition, is instinctive,--it satisfies an inborn need Where such a condition exists, it is an obvious waste of time to search about forto do is to turn the ready energy of the child into the channel that is already open to it, so long as this procedure fits in with the results that wethis fact, inasmuch as the terms ”problem interest” and ”motivation” seem most commonly to be associated in the minds of teachers e adults term ”real” or economic situations To learn a lesson well may often be a sufficient motive,--may often constitute a ”real” situation to the child,--and if it does, it will serve very effectively our purposes in this other task,--na the pupil to see the worth of the method that we ask him to eeneral nature in connection with the art of study that should be eh-school pupils are, I believe, e really means One of the fallacies of which I was possessed on co my work in the lower schools was the belief that there are so I naturally concluded that the superintendent of schools was one of theseman in my toas a third; and any one who ever wrote a book was put, _ex officio_ so to speak, into this class without further inquiry One of therevelations of my later education was to learn that, after all, the ah it seems, is after all pitiably small Of opinion and speculation we have a surplus, but of real, downright, hard fact, our capital is stillcould not be done in the high school to teach pupils the difference between fact and opinion, and soh which real facts are accumulated How many mistakes of life are due to the lack of the judicial attitude right here What s outside of our own special field of knowledge or activity Nothing depresses me to-day quite so much as the readiness hich layy and education,--and I suppose that my own hasty acceptance of statements in other fields would have a sieneral education help us out at all in this estions to reat deal In the recent Polar controversy, the syeneral public were, I think, at the outset with Cook This was perhaps, natural, and yet the trained ment for one reason if for no other,--and that one reason was Peary's long Arctic service, his unquestioned eneral reputation for honesty and caution in advancing opinions By all the lessons that history teaches, Peary's word should have had precedence over Cook's, for Peary was a specialist, while Cook was only an aeneral public discounted entirely those lessons, and trusted rather the novice, hat results it is now unnecessary to review,--and in nine cases out of ten, the results will be the sa pupils to study, also teach theive some sort of an evaluation to the authorities that they consult? Could we not teach them that, in nine cases out of ten, at least, theto is the est in his field, and who enjoys the best reputation a his felloorkers? Sometimes, I admit, the rule does not work, and especially with men whose reputations as authorities have outlived their period of productivity, but even this h-school pupils ought distinctly to understand that the authors of their text-books are not always the reatest authorities in the fields that they treat The use of biographical dictionaries, of the books that are appearing in various fields giving brief biographies and often some authoritative estimate of the workers in these fields, is important in this connection

McMurry recoed to take a critical attitude toward the principles they are set to e, as he says, the soundness and worth of the stateood advice, and wherever the pupil can intelligently deal with real sources, it is well frequently to have him check up the statee of the specialist, and to trust one's untrained judge and experience is likely to lead to unfortunate results We have all sorts of illustrations fronorant man ill not trust the physician or the health official in matters of sanitation; because he lacks the proper perspective, he jumps to the conclusion that the specialist is a fraud Would it not be well to suppleestion by the one that I have just made,--that is, that we train pupils how to evaluate authorities as well as facts,--how to protect themselves fronorance of laymen, both in medicine, in education, and in Arctic exploration?

And I believe that there is a place, also, in the high school, especially in connection with the work in science and history, for giving pupils soained I should not teach science exclusively by the laboratory method, nor history exclusively by the source method, but I should certainly take frequent opportunity to let pupils work through so with the conditions so up ”blind leads” and toilsoe, perhaps, sole; and all in order that they may know better and appreciate e which the master-minds of the world have bequeathed to the present and the future

And along with this, as they master the principles of science, let them learn also the hureat discovery for years until he could be absolutely certain that it was a law; until he could get the very commonplace but obstreperousbodies;--the story of Darith his twenty-odd years of theinto thethe driest books, always on the lookout for the facts that would point the way to the explanation of species;--the story of Morse and his bitter struggle against poverty, and sickness, and innu years, success crowned his efforts

All thispupils how to study; and yet it will lend its influence toward the attainment of that end For, after all, we must lead our pupils to see that some books, in spite of their formidable difficulties and their apparent abstractions, are still close to life, and that the truth which lies in books, and which ish theht out of huht down miraculously from some remote storehouse of wisdoood deal of fun at book learning nowadays, and there is a pedantic type of book learning that certainly deserves all the ridicule that can be heaped upon it But it is not wise to carry satire and ridicule too far in any direction, and especially when itle factor, has operated to raise e

V

To teach the child the art of study means, then, that we take every possible occasion to i real and vital probleradually and persistently and systerasp the radually to abstract the method from the particular cases to which he applies it and to emotionalize it,--to make it an ideal Only in this way, so far as we eneralized as to find ready application in his later life To this end, it is essential that the steps be taken repeatedly,--not begun to-day and never thought of again until next year,--but daily, even hourly, insuring a little growth This ree of patience,--that first principle of pedagogic skill,--but also that he have a corasp of the problem, and the ability to separate the woods from the trees, so that, to him at least, the chief aim will never be lost to view

But, even at its best, the task is a severe one, and we need, here as elsewhere in education, carefully controlled tests and experiet at the facts Above all, letpupils how to study To adopt the incidental policy in any field of education,--whether in arith the power of reasoning or the memory, or the art of study,--is to throide open the doors that lead to the lines of least resistance, to lax methods, to easy honors, to weakened mental fiber, and to scamped work Just as the pernicious doctrine of the subconscious is the first and last refuge of the psycho-faker, so incidental learning is the first and last refuge of soft pedagogy And Itask in an indolent, unreflective, hit-or-miss fashi+on in the hope that soe the very definite results that we desire

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: A paper read before the Superintendents' Section of the Illinois State Teachers' association, December 29, 1910]

~IX~

A PLEA FOR THE DEFINITE IN EDUCATION[15]

I

One way to be definite in education is to formulate as clearly as we can the aie of our work The task of teaching is so complex that, unless we strive earnestly and persistently to reduce it to the simplest possible terms, we are bound to work blindly and ineffectively

It is only one phase of this topic that I wish to discuss with you thisMy plea for the definite in education will be limited not only to the field of educational aims and values, but to a sra history in the ele, to confine my remarks to this topic, and to attack the specific question, What is the history that we teach in the grades to do for the pupil? I wish to make this limitation, not only because what I have to say will be related to the other topics on the program, but also because this very subject of history is one which the lack of a definite standard of educational value has been keenly felt